Maximum”, and the brooding moments of cocktail jazz interspersed with tales of seedy misconduct. Like its predecessors, Untitled #0 is filled to the brim with a striking range of images, from the sassy clickety-clack of high heels over a sun-drenched Riviera strip (“Ape, Spies & Apps”) to the tightly controlled Marx Brothers-chaos that pops up with well-timed frequency the pumping, high-octane ride of “La Malle-Valise de l’Heimatlos du Sleeping” (a title only Vermeersch could come up with), the raucousness of album closer “A. Not only because its language references several generations of soundtracks, but because the band, like an expert movie director, are experts at telling a story and use every single device at their disposal to excite, fool and surprise the audience. Playing the two-headed Untitled #0 front to back, you’re once again struck by how much FES’ music has in common with the art of cinema. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the album’s title track commemorates the victims of the terrorist attack on the Maelbeek metro station in 2016. Boyle couldn’t think of these song titles!), and the authentic, the heartfelt and the committed. And finally, there’s that unrelenting tension between the disjointed, the provocative, the surreal (even short story master T.C. They’re also steeped in many traditions – Ellingtonia, daily routine, Zappa, big city frenzy, absurdism… – yet succeed in turning them all upside down and inside out. The band consists of fifteen voices, each of them filled with personality in its own right, yet retains the vision and focus of a hardcore collective madness. Since 1999, Peter Vermeersch’ band has walked along several axes with the demented defiance of a tightrope walker. While nearing its 20th birthday, Flat Earth Society is still sailing the seas of unease. Billy Wilder said it best: “Don’t be boring”.
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